Mr. President, the importance of tendering contracts to The Gambia Public and Procurement Authority (GPPA) which is the rightful authority can’t be over emphasised.

There are lots of risk involved in not tendering contracts to the rightful authority such as; awarding to the unqualified bidder, poor quality of work, high bid price, not achieving value for money, possibilities of contract variations, delay in contract completion and conflict of interest. All public contracts must be tendered to pave the way for good governance and disallow corruptions

The Banjul Road and Rehabilitation project which was awarded was without tender should be a learning point for your government.

We believe that if a project of that nature was tendered, it would give an opportunity to interested companies to tender their bids and the most qualified one would have been given the opportunity.

Mr. President, the GPPA should be involved in all stages of contract awarding with a view to ensure transparency and accountability. Just to remind you that, the importance of tendering contracts can be to attain value for money; to award to the most technical and financially responsive bidder; to treat all potential bidders fairly and equally; to have chances to negotiate and transparency in the procurement process.

The government should in fact, do these advertisements of contracts through the main newspapers in the country.

Mr. President another issue that your government should carefully look into, is the frequent road accidents in the country. The spate of accidents in this country are not only frightening but worrisome, and unless and until we come together to address this phenomenon, it’s likely to continue.

Almost every week, you will hear about an accident in one part of the country or another and this sometimes involves some lives. In most of the accidents, it’s either due to careless and reckless driving or over speeding. There should be national discussion on the issue of these frequent road accidents if we really want to put an end into this menace.

Mr. President, a lot of our young people are losing their lives as a result of accidents. The Gambia Police Force (GPF) and the Gambia Transport Union (GTU) should take the lead role. Unfortunately, we are seeing young people with driver’s licences and even driving trucks in this country.

Technology is now the order of the day, and The Gambia as a country should also focus more on it. The GPF should have CCTV cameras on our main highways especially at the Trans-Gambia Highway which is recording most of the fatal accidents in the country. This will help to reduce road accidents as speeding drivers can always be identified by the Traffic Police through CCTV footages.

The CCTV cameras can also be used to fight other clandestine activities on our highways. In fighting this episode, we must also do away with the issue of ‘Maslaha’ syndrome.

Mr. President, we believe that one of the ways to halt the frequent road accidents is that drivers who are found wanting on careless driving resulting in loss of lives, should be prosecuted, while those caught unnecessarily with speeding should be banned from driving for a certain period of time.

The police, who are also responsible for issuing driving licences, should also take a very critical look before they issue licences to drivers. In fact, some drivers are even getting a licence without even going through the right procedures. That should stop. Therefore, police officers should be strict in providing licences, all should go in the normal process if not, fatal accidents could be the order of the day.

Any police officer who facilitates drivers licence should be brought to book.

There should also be attitudinal change from drivers and passengers. In some instances, it is even the passengers who will be asking the drivers to increase their speed. Therefore, all hands must be on deck so that we can fight this menace.

Mr. President it is also a welcoming development that your government is currently conducting birth registration and health insurance membership registration. This is long overdue; hence we commend your government for this massive achievement. However, one thing that should be put into consideration is to ensure that non-Gambians who are not eligible for this exercise do not have it.

Our national documents should be jealously guided. People, who are not entitled to have it, shouldn’t in any way have our documents. A non-Gambian who wants to have our documents, should do the right thing but not the other way round. There are a lot of implications involved in non-Gambians having access to our documents. We hope that the relevant stakeholders will critically look into these issues.

Finally, Mr. President, it’s high time that you appoint a minister of trade regional integration and employment to handle one of the most important ministries in the country. Currently, the world, including The Gambia, is facing a lot of economic challenges as a result of the war in Ukraine and Russia coupled with the deadly pandemic too. If the minister is appointed, he/she will work with technicians in bringing down the prices of goods and commodities that are surging every day and also address the issues of youth employment among others.

Good Day!

Editorial from our partner at The Point.